The god Serapis in Egypt

The god Serapis was probably first introduced in Egypt by Alexander, although it was Alexander’s successor Ptolemy I (r. 323-283 BCE) who helped popularize the god there by bringing the god’s statue from Sinope (a city on the Black Sea in present-day Turkey, east of Istanbul) to Alexandria, where Greeks were beginning to settle. Ptolemy also established the Alexandrian library and the world’s first university with a medical school. (Segerberg, p. 99)

The route from Sinope in the north to Alexandria in the south.

Legend holds that Ptolemy told his advisor — Timotheos of Eleusis, or, "the Eumolpid" (Rose, p. 108; Cumont, p. 51) — that he dreamed of a statue with a serpent at its feet — the serpent having three heads of dog, wolf, and lion — and a corn measuring pot as a hat. His advisor identified the image as the famous statue of Serapis, and Ptolemy felt it might unify the Egyptians and Greeks in Alexandria as well as incorporating the Babylonian religion. Despite three years' of resistance from the people of Sinope who did not want to part with it, the statue "magically" took itself by boat and installed itself in the new temple, called the Serapeum or Serapeion, in Alexandria. (Rosenbloom)

The earliest statues of Serapis from the Ptolemaic period did not have the hat. The hat appears in statues from the later Roman period. (Source: University College London) Eleni Vassilika writes: “The most popular cult image of Serapis shows him draped and regally enthroned, wearing his corn-basket kalathos-crown over thick wavy locks, with the triple-headed beast Cerberos seated at his side. The crown associated the god with the fruits of the earth, and the beast, possibly confused with the Egyptian jackal deity Anubis, was related to the god’s role as conveyor of the dead.” (Vassilika, p. 104) The kalathos is also known as a modius. “At the time of the Antonines,” Cumont wrote, referring to the Roman imperial rule from 138-180 CE, “there were forty-two Serapeums in Egypt.” (Cumont, pp. 74-75)

The name “Serapis” came from either Asar-Hapi (the Egyptian names for Osiris-Apis) or possibly the Chaldean deity Sar-Apsi. Chaldea was in southeastern Mesopotamia, northwest of the Persian Gulf.

Serapis, like Osiris, in Egypt was understood to be the brother/husband of Isis. He was believed to be the resurrection of the creator Ptah, who was ritually slaughtered, mummified, cremated, and then, in the form of the Apis bull, entombed. Apart from these broad associations, there are no surviving specific myths about Serapis.

Poems in honor of Serapis were written by the philosopher Demetrius of Phalerum who credited the god with curing his blindness. (Cumont, pp. 74-75) "Serapis’ blessing was sought for children and the sick, and he was regarded as a Saviour who spoke through oracles and in one’s dreams." (Vassilika, p. 104)

The Christian patriarch Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, together with the Roman emperor Theodosius, axed the statue and torched the Serapeum in 391 CE, representing, in Rosenbloom's words, "the final destruction of paganism in Rome’s once tolerant empire." (Cumont, pp. 84-85; Rosenbloom) "An excellent evocation of this moment, when a syncretistic and sophisticated culture is nearly completely harassed out of existence by the rising single-minded zealotry, can be found in Georg Ebers’s 1885 novel Serapis [PDF], published in English translation [by Clara Bell, from the German] in New York the same year.” (Rosenbloom)

Ebers has Theodosius order the destruction of the idols in Alexandria and continued worship (or failure to report it) punishable by a fine of 15 pounds of gold. He has the Christian deacon Eusebius incite supporters:

"Not our grandsons, no, but our own children will ask: Who — what was Serapis? For he who shall be overthrown is no longer a mighty god but an idol bereft of his splendor and his dignity. * * * The ruined edifice of the Serapeum, the masterpiece of Bryaxis laid in fragments in the dust, and thousands of wailing heathen!" (Ebers, p. 216, 219)

Meanwhile, thousands of followers of Serapis gather in the vast, doomed temple. Damia, an elder woman who follows the old Egyptian gods, preaches her way:

“If, when Serapis falls, the universe does not crumble to pieces like a ruinous hovel, then the wisdom of the Magians is a lie, the course of the stars has nothing to do with the destinies of the earth and its inhabitants, the planets are mere lamps, the sun is no more than a luminous furnace, the old gods are marsh-fires, emanations from the dark bog of men’s minds — and the great Serapis...But why be angry with him? There is no doubt — no if nor but...” (Ebers, pp. 261-262)

In the novel, the high priest of Serapis is named Olympius, “famous now for his learning” (p. 108).

"On a platform of rocks and mighty masonry rose a structure of wonderful magnificence and beauty, so brilliantly illuminated by the morning sun that its noble proportions and gorgeous colors showed in dazzling splendor and relief. Over the gilt dome bent the cloudless blue of the African sky, and the polished hemisphere shone, as radiant as the sun whose beams it reflected. Sloping planes for vehicles, and flights of steps for pedestrians led up to the gates. The lower part of this wonderful edifice — the great Temple of Serapis — was built to stand forever, and the pillars of the vestibule supported a roof more fitted to the majesty of the gods than to the insignificance of mortals ; priests and worshippers moved here like children among the trunks of some gigantic forest. Round the cornice, in hundreds of niches, and on every projection, all the gods of Olympus and all the heroes and sages of Greece seemed to have met in conclave, and stood gazing down on the world in gleaming brass or tinted marble. Every portion of the building blazed with gold and vivid coloring; the painter’s hand had added life to the marble groups in high relief that filled the pediments and the smaller figures in the long row of metopes. All the population of a town might have found refuge in the vast edifice and its effect on the mind was like that of a harmonious symphony of adoration sung by a chorus of giants.

"All hail! Great Serapis! I greet thee in joyful humility, thankful that Thou hast granted to my old eyes to see Thy glorious and eternal temple once again!” murmured Karnis in devout contemplation." (Ebers, pp. 18-19)

One of Serapis' followers "had been accustomed to regard the Serapeum as the very heart of the universe — the centre and fulcrum on which the balance of the earth depended; to her, Serapis himself was inseparable from his temple and its atmosphere of magical and mystical power." (Ebers, pp. 193-194)

”The head of Serapis was the eternal Mind; in his broad breast slept the Soul of the Universe, and the prototypes of all created things; the world of matter was the footstool under his feet. All the subordinate forces obeyed him, the mighty first Cause, whose head towered up to the realm of the incomprehensible and inconceivable One. He was the sum total of the universe, the epitome of things created; and at the same time he was the power which gave them life and intelligence and preserved them from perishing by perpetual procreation. It was his might that kept the multiform structure of the material and psychical world in perennial harmony. All that lived — Nature and its Soul as much as Man and his Soul — were inseparably dependent on him. If he — if Serapis were to fall, the order of the universe must be destroyed ; and with him : The Synthesis of the Universe — the Universe itself must cease to exist.

But what would survive would not be the nothingness — the void of which her grandmother had spoken; it would be the One — the cold, ineffable, incomprehensible One! This world would perish with Serapis; but perhaps it might please that One to call another world into being out of his overflowing essence, peopled by other and different beings.” (Ebers, p 195)

An underground sanctuary to Serapis was described as follows:

"...in which the adepts were required to go through certain severe ordeals before they were esteemed worthy to be received into the highest order of the initiated — the Esoterics. The halls and corridors which she now went through, and which she had never before seen, were meagrely lighted with lamps and torches, and all that met her eye filled her with reverent awe while it excited her imagination. Everything, in fact — every room and every image — was as unlike nature, and as far removed from ordinary types as possible, in arrangement and appearance. After passing through a pyramidal room, with triangular sides that sloped to a point, she came to one in the shape of a polygonal prism. In a long, broad corridor she had to walk on a narrow path, bordered by sphinxes; and there she clung tightly to her guide, for on one side of the footway yawned a gulf of great depth. In another place she heard, above her head, the sound of rushing waters, which then fell into the abyss beneath with a loud roar. After this she came upon a large grotto, hewn in the living rock and defended by a row of staring crocodiles’ heads, plated with gold; the heavy smell of stale in- cense and acrid resins choked her, and her way now lay over iron gratings and past strangely contrived furnaces. The walls were decorated with colored reliefs: Tantalus, Ixion, and Sisyphus toiling at his stone, looked down on her in hideous realism as she went. Rock chambers, fast closed with iron doors, as though they enclosed inestimable treasures or inscrutable secrets, lay on either hand, and her dress swept against numerous images and vessels closely shrouded in hangings." (Ebers, pp. 273-274)

A British military ship named HMS Serapis launched in 1779 and was captured in 1781 by an American captain, John Paul Jones, whose own ship sank and who famously shouted, when things looked dimmest, “I have not yet begun to fight!” The ship was transferred to the French Navy in 1782. (Source: A page on modelships.co.uk, accessed 29 Dec 2003, that no longer exists)

Sources

Osborn Segerberg, Jr. The Immortality Factor. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc. 1974. Segerberg added: “The dynastic Ptolemies defied the ancient taboo and permitted dissection of human bodies.”

H. J. Rose. Religion in Greece and Rome. New York: Harper and Row, 1959. Originally published as Ancient Greek Religion (1946) and Ancient Roman Religion (1948), London: Hutchinson and Co., Limited.

Franz Cumont. The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism. Authorized translation. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 1911.

Eleni Vassilika. Greek and Roman Art

Eric Rosenbloom. "Serapis on the Liffey." 2003. Accessed Feb. 24, 2018.

"Memphis: Plaster head of Serapis," University College London, 2002, accessed 24 Feb 2018.

Georg Ebers. Serapis. Translated from the German by Clara Bell. New York: William S. Gottsberger, 1885.

Further reading

Stambaugh, John E. Sarapis under the early Ptolemies. Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1972.

Abdul Hamid II, last Ottoman Sultan

Image of Abdul Hamid II from Wikimedia Commons

Abdul Hamid (Abdul "The Damned") left a $1.5 billion estate. He was known to be corrupt and had hidden money in multiple places. He had four legal wives and 400 other wives. He abdicated and was exiled to Salonica in 1909, was placed in house arrest in his palace in 1912, died in 1918, and, after a five-year legal battle, $50 million was given to nine of his widows and thirteen of his children.

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To understand the end of the Ottoman Empire, it helps to go back a little further. Kevan Harris writes in "The Social Question in the Middle East": In the 1820s and 1830s, Mehmed Ali, who governed Ottoman Egypt, built "a formidable industrial and military capacity among his assigned territories," because, although technically he was under Istanbul, "in reality, he was forgiving a Mediterranean Prussia" without the consent of the sultan, invading "Palestine, Syria, and then Greece." In 1840, the British and Austrian navies went on the offensive to stop him, and Ali backed down. The long-term economic consequences were that Egypt exported raw materials and imported manufactured goods from Europe. Also, "writers such as the Egypt-based intellectual Rifa'a al-Tahtawi attempted a synthesis of Islamic political thought and European political economy. Qasim Amin's The Liberation of Women and The New Woman appeared not long after." And what happened in the early 20th century?

"Along with other agrarian empires, such [as] Russia, India, and China, the Ottomans and Persians underwent anti-imperialist revolts at their urban centers...elites attempted to redirect their remaining imperial resources toward military upgrading, popular mobilization, and nationalist myth-making, often combined with a degree of emancipation for women of the elite, at least."

It's not quite right, Harris claims, to say "that a Franco-British colonial order created the modern Middle East" after WWI. Instead we should say that this order "cobbled together structures of rule out of a diverse Ottoman-Persian imperial zone." During the first half of the 20th century, "transnational networks of intellectuals" in the Middle East "created a common set of frameworks for nation buildings, myth making, and postcolonial citizenship," yet ironically forgot "their own roles" in "forming coherent nation-statesout of imperial clay."

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Back to the turn of the century: Abdul Hamid preferred blonde, slim, tall Circassian slave girls with small feet, and was repulsed by "American and French women". An article in the Cincinnati Enquirer (April 20, 1930) said: "He was extremely generous to his Circassian beauties. If they displeased him, or age was beginning to take toll of their beauty, he did not bundle them up in a sack and dump them Into the Bosphorus." Instead, he would either give the woman to a Pasha (along with a generous sum of money) or let her live out her life in luxury in the harem. The chief eunuch was also well compensated; he left a $2 million estate.

However, despite this penchant for human rights, the Enquirer article described him as "one of the world's wickedest men, and the most abject of cowards. He had all the cruelty of a Nero, without the courage." He was also paranoid: "While strolling through the Imperial gardens, Abdul Hamid came upon his workman who was on his knees planting some flowers. As soon as the gardener realized who was behind him he rose quickly to salute his sovereign. The Sultan, mistaking the movement for an attempt on his life, whipped out his revolver and shot the man dead."

Of his 1909 exit, the Enquirer article said:

"In the night he was being made ready for the trip to Salonica he fell to the floor in a wild convulsion. When he recovered consciousness he sent word by his chief eunuch to the harem that all who wished to join him in exile should make ready to follow him at once. It was a veritable bedlam into which the messenger walked, for the women were running about and screaming like a pack of wild animals. As soon as the official explained the object of his call, silent weeping replaced the shouting and screaming....And when the gates of Yildiz Palace swung open to permit Abdul Hamid and the women to depart from the scenes of their former glories for a prison in Salonica, the street mobs openly jeered and scoffed at their one-time ruler."

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Francis McCullagh's book, The Fall of Abd-ul-Hamid

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Francis McCullagh described seeing on Dec. 17, 1908 that, when Abdul Hamid paraded in public, he brought the harem ladies “to S. Sophia’s in half a dozen sumptuous, closed carriages, surrounded by a troop of eunuchs on horseback.” (McCullagh, p. 7) The Sultan insisted on daily intelligence reports. These were sent "through the secretaries, the eunuchs, the servants, the women of the harem and the Sultan’s sons.” (McCullagh, p. 19)

On the night of April 13, 1909: “Near the Yenijami telegraph office stood a stout black eunuch, elegantly dressed, and going, solemnly and tirelessly, through all the movements which a soldier carries out with his rifle, save that, instead of a rifle, he was armed with a walking-stick. ... This unfortunate eunuch was not the only person that lost his reason during the night of horrors.” (McCullagh, p. 120) Later in April, at Yildiz, after the coup: “The great palaces which the Sultan has distributed so liberally among his relations seemed to have been abandoned by their owners, for crowds of eunuchs and other servants hung out of the harem windows and trampled the flower-beds in a way that they would scarcely have presumed to do if their masters had been at home.” (McCullagh, p. 240) The deserted palace seemed to be being looted, and “eunuchs were sauntering about.” (McCullagh, p. 244) “The very multitude of servants and dependents in this over-grown household served to heighten the confusion. There were chamberlains, secretaries, body-guards, and aides-de-camp (350 persons), ladies and slaves (370 persons), sons and daughters of the Sultan with their respective suites (160 persons), eunuchs in the service of the harem (127), the personnel of the kitchens (390), the personnel of the stables (350), doorkeepers and other servants (250), troops forming the immediate Palace guard (1450).” (McCullagh, p. 249)

“The instant Yildiz surrendered... All who were not women were immediately summoned to leave the Harem, and nearly all obeyed the summons voluntarily. The eunuchs hesitated but were bodily cast forth by the more energetic of the young ladies inside. On being helped to their feet by the soldiers, these unhappy Nubians manifested as much fear as if they were about to be hanged on the spot. But they were not treated harshly on the whole. A military commission, after having controlled their identity and their number according to list which they possessed, sent some of them to the above-mentioned camp and others to the Old Seraglio in Stamboul.” (McCullagh, p. 265)

The chief black eunuch had relatively little influence under Abdul Hamid, he claims, and no influence whatsoever following 1909 coup, “though the eunuchs have not yet been dispensed with altogether.” (McCullagh, p. 275)

After three decades devoted to “love of power," Abdul Hamid "was thrown entirely out of employment. Was it extraordinary that his energies, thus denied their usual outlet, should turn entirely to intrigue?...we must not forget his up-bringing amid the intrigues of women and eunuchs and amid the traditions of a House like the unmentionable House of Ottoman. We must keep in view the natural effect on a secretive, suspicious mind like that of Abd-ul-Hamid...” (McCullagh, pp. 16-17)

Nadir and Djevher Aghas

Nadir Agha, the second most powerful eunuch, “admits having bribed the soldiers to mutiny [in April 1909]. The first eunuch confirms this story, and even better evidence is forthcoming in the shape fo the enormous collection of djournals...” (McCullagh, p. 46)

“Nadir Agha, the second eunuch of the Sultan and a man of whom I shall afterwards have a good deal to say in connexion with the mutiny of April 13, recently made in the Tanin some interesting revelations...” He explains that he brought a book to the Sultan, the Kahriat of Abdullah Djevdet Bey which was already an old book, and the Sultan asked him to read it for him to find out if anything bad was being said about him, and the book included intelligence papers. He found out it was sent by “Mustapha, the Sultan’s tobacco-cutter,” and the Sultan no longer trusted him as he was known to be a spy, so the Sultan made the eunuchs smoke the tobacco. (McCullagh, p. 21)

“The Mohammedan League or Association was publicly founded a few weeks before the Mutiny, but it must have been guiding events for months before, although the Ahrar thought that they were the inspiring spirits. Its founders were the Kis-Agassi or chief eunuch at Yildiz, Nadir Agha the second eunuch at Yildiz, one for the Sultan’s sons, one of the Sultan’s nephews, the elvish Vahdeti, and several others of the same type. All those I have mentioned lived in Yildiz.” (McCullagh, p. 53)

Of everyone in the Association:

“The most brilliant of them all, intellectually, was Nadir Agha, the eunuch, who, in the tenth year of his age, that is twenty-five years ago, was bought for the Sultan from a slave-merchant in Egypt for a hundred and fifty francs, and had developed during the last few years into Abd-ul-Hamid’s most trusted adviser. The first thing the Macedonians did after taking Yildiz was to fix the place and time of Nadir’s execution, but the clever eunuch afterwards made himself so useful to his captors by pointing out to them the places wherein the ex-Sultan had hidden his valuables, that he was soon released. In order to explain his release, the Macedonians circulated pathetic tales of how, after the proclamation of the Constitution, Nadir had patriotically refused to convey to the Sultan any of the secret denunciations and spies’ reports that had again begun to flow in, and how the enraged Abd-ul-Hamid inflicted on him une verte correction, in the course of which the eunuch lost several of his front teeth. Graf Sternberg declares, however, that Nadir was saved by German influence, because he had previously been in the confidence of the German Embassy.

However that may be, he was soon released, and is now to be seen — a pleasant-faced, very youthful-looking man of slight, girlish figure, and with regular Aryan features and dark Abyssinian complexion — daily promenading the streets of Pera dressed in the fashionable and ultra-European garb affected by his kind. A request on his part to see the present Sultan met, however, with an abrupt refusal…” (McCullagh, pp. 55-56)

For 15 years Nadir Agha, the second-most powerful eunuch, had a “deadly enemy” in Djevher Agha, the chief eunuch. Djevher was

“hanged on the Galata bridge, hanged, for some reason or other, in a black coat, while all the others were executed in white. Always as light-boned as a girl, these unhappy beings are either slim, like Nadir, or else one mass of bloated flesh. Djevher Agha belonged to the latter category, being a huge, swollen, balloon-like man of extraordinary stature. Owing to vindictiveness (for, in Stamboul, the arrogance and cruelty of the Palace eunuchs towards the lower orders is proverbial), or to inexperience, the gipsy executioner bungled his work by getting the rope round the chin and the nape of the neck, so that the man was killed, not by strangulation but by dislocation of the vertebrae, with the result that the unnaturally prolonged and slender neck offered, after death, a horrible contrast to the corpulent trunk.

So perished His Highness (to give him his full title) the Dar-us-seadet-us-sherifé-aghassy or Guardian of the Gates of Felicity.

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The next man to be hanged was so affected by the sight of Djevher Agha’s body that he offered to hang himself.

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As for Djevher Agha’s fortune it was confiscated and the furniture of his villa at Kuru-Tchechu was sold by public auction. Djevher Agha seems to have had a great affection for a beautiful Egyptian slave-girl, whom he maintained in luxury in a house that he had had constructed for her in his garden, and on whom he used to lavish valuable presents. The girl seemed to be heart-broken by the fate which overtook her unfortunate admirer. It is a strange but well-authenticated fact that, in Turkey and Persia and probably in other Mohammedan countries, wealthy slaves of Djevher Agha’s unfortunate condition have commonly some such protégée to whom they are, or fancy themselves to be, passionately attached. The reader will remember that Montesquieu deals in one of his works with these strange friendships and that Rycaut and Oliver also refer to them.” (McCullagh, pp. 275-276)

This description of Djevher Agha's hanging was likely the source for Dennis Wheatley's 1935 novel The Eunuch of Stamboul and N. M. Penzer's 1936 nonfiction The Harem, as both mentioned the same information about the hanging with the same spelling of the eunuch's name. Penzer had read McCullagh's book and quotes it at length at the beginning of The Harem. Wheatley and Penzer were friends.

Abdul Hamid had a strained relationship with his second-most powerful eunuch, Nadir Agha. “On learning of the executions at Constantinople, Abd-ul-Hamid expressed keen regret that the name of Nadir Agha did not figure in the list of the hanged...” (McCullagh, p. 303) Likewise, Nadir Agha “has, as a rule, very little good to say of his old master.” (McCullagh, p. 250) Nadir Agha described him as having “a stone in the place where his heart ought to be, and innocent blood flowing in floods had no effect on him whatever.” (McCullagh, p. 132) “The services of the ex-Sultan’s eunuchs have also of course been dispensed with. Tormented by a longing for home and for kindred — a longing which their own inability to form domestic ties renders all the more intense — some of them have returned to seek in Abyssinia the kind relatives who mutilated and sold them in infancy and of whom they have not now the faintest recollection. The most intelligent of them all, the famous Nadir Agha, still remains in Constantinople, but he has not yet found any employment.” (McCullagh, p. 274) In addition to chickens, two cows, and a dog, Abdul Hamid, in exile, asked for “two more black eunuchs, Nureddine and Shehreddine Aghas, and all these persons and animals have been duly forwarded to him and have arrived in good condition.” (McCullagh, p. 286)

Sources

"The Social Question in the Middle East: Past and Present." Kevan Harris. Chapter 11 in The Social Question in the Twenty-First Century: A Global View. ed. Jan Breman, Kevan Harris, Ching Kwan Lee, Marcel van der Linden. Luminos (UC Press open access), 2019.

Francis McCullagh. The Fall of Abd-ul-Hamid. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1910.

Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt: A eunuch?

Amenhotep, Divine Ruler of Thebes (also known as Amenophis IV), ascended the throne in 1358 BCE and ruled for 17 years. This was the 18th dynasty in Egypt's New Kingdom period.

"I am not really interested in Akhenaten himself," wrote Dominic Montserrat, "but in why other people are interested in him and find his story relevant and inspirational when he has been dead for three and a half thousand years." (Montserrat, p. 2) "He has become a simulacrum, an endlessly repeated copy with no original. His immortality lies precisely in what is not there." (Montserrat, p. 184)

"To the early scholars in the field Akhenaten was a disguised female or a eunuch form the south (at a time when such were still common)...to the perspicacious classicist Toynbee his sun-cult was a prototype of the Roman imperial Sol Invictus of the 3rd century..." (Redford, p. 4)

Contrasting with the violence of his predecessors, Akhenaten's motto was Ankh em maet, Live in truth (or harmony). During his rule, maet began to be spelled phonetically, rather than with the hieroglyphic of a squatting goddess.

He changed his name to Akhenaten five years into his reign. As Redford explained, during a planned move to the Akhetaten site, Akhenaten decided to break with the worship of Amun as king of the gods. That god's name was made anathema. Akhenaten's public inscriptions referencing his name were blotted out, objects weredefaced, and people named after Amun (including the king himself) were required to change their names. Hence Amenophis (meaning Amun is satisfied) became Akh-en-aten (meaning something like giving power or aid to the sun).

The typical king's title, "the good god," was changed to "the good ruler." He rejected idolatry and said God was formless and transcendental. His god's name was Re-Herakhte and he was manifested in the sunlight that came from Aten, the sun. The sunlight brought the ankh of life to the nostrils of the royalty. The sun was no longer a personal deity to him. Freud argued that monotheism originated with Akhenaten. (See Freud's essay "Moses and Monotheism," which in turn inspired Kahlo's painting "Moses".) Note, however, that just because he represented only one god doesn't indicate what he may have personally believed.

Having abandoned the city of Luxor within Thebes, he built a capital city at Tell el-Amarna, but it was quickly abandoned after his death. While the Amarna site was rediscovered in the 18th century, the Luxor site was lost until archaeologists uncovered it in 2020.

His predecessor Amenophis III had also been known by the same name, minus the "Divine" (Amenhotep, Ruler of Thebes). Amenophis III buried the Apis bull which incarnated Ptah. Akhenaten, for his part, promised to bury the Mnevis bull, sacred to the solar worship at Heliopolis, in the eastern hills. (Aldred, p. 43)

Stucco heads of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, 1340 BCE, Photo by Mary Harrsch, Wikimedia Commons, CC 4.0 license

In the reliefs at the rock tombs at Amarna, Aldred writes, "Akhenaten is represented with the same elongated neck, broad hips, swelling breasts and plump thighs as Nefertiti. Since he occasionally wears a long clinging robe similar to a woman's gown, figures of the king have often been confused with those of the queen..." Eugene Lefebure, a French scholar near the turn of the twentieth century, believed that Akhenaten, like Hatshepshut, was a woman dressed as a man. Others, after Elliot Smith's hypothesis in 1907, believed he had a pituitary problem known as Fröhlich's Syndrome leading to hypogonadism, a particular fat distribution, and a failure to develop sexually. Aldred points out that Akhenaten had multiple wives, a harem, six daughters with his chief queen Nefertiti, and sexual relations with those daughters, as was customary. The appearance of him in these reliefs may therefore be more of an innovation in artistic style than a scientific representation of him. Aldred calls it "not the least of the enigmas which his reign has bequeathed us."

Modern interpretations are tricky to impose. "The gay versions are misogynistic in that they write the prominent women of Akhenaten's family out of the plot; the others recall Orientalist porn of the nineteenth century, in which pansexual Eastern potentates had sex with everybody imaginable." (Montserrat, p. 10) Glass's Akhenaten opera — in which the character is stripped to reveal sexually ambiguous body — was first performed in 1985. "In the London and New York productions, the singer who played Akhenaten, Christopher Robson, wore an elaborate bodysuit with certain attachments that took three hours to get into." (Montserrat, p. 181)

"There is now a broad consensus among Egyptologists that the exaggerated forms of Akhenaten's physical portrayal...are not to be read literally....These [contradictory] attributes render the king literally suprahuman, a divine body which goes beyond human experience." (Montserrat, p. 48)

Sources

Cyril Aldred. Akhenaten: King of Egypt. New York: Thames and Hudson Inc., 1988.

Donald B. Redford. Akhenaten: The Heretic King. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Dominic Montserrat. Ahkenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt. London/New York: Routledge, 2000.

Further reading

Naguib Mahfouz, Dweller in Truth [al 'A'ish fi al-haqiqa], mentioned by Montserrat.

Perceptions of eunuchs in Claudian's 'In Eutropium'

Claudian wrote In Eutropium (Against Eutropius) to denounce the prominent eunuch by that name. Eutropius was a Roman consul in the late fourth century CE and Claudian acknowledges him as the third founder of the city after Byzas and Constantine (2.83), but that doesn't stop Claudian from making pejorative references to eunuchs as "half men" (1.171, 2.22). Jacqueline Long writes, “Any androcentric culture would find emasculation a natural invective tactic.” (Long, p. 122) Claudian depicts Eutropius as greedy, a stereotype of eunuchs that may have formed from the assumption of the displacement of lust for sex toward lust for money. A spin on the meaning of a eunuch’s childlessness — namely, that it leaves him emotionally stunted and not learning how to bond or serve others (rather than affording an opportunity for displacement of the tendency to bond and serve) — appears in Claudian’s words: “a eunuch is moved by no devotion, nor does he fear for family and children,” (1.83-88, as quoted by Long, p. 135).

Much of the criticism is not just abstract, but sensory:

“The figure of the eunuch makes an irreconcilable antithesis with all the honors Eutropius achieves. Creating a vivid sensory impression that will remain in the audience’s mind is the imagery’s most important task. An example of its effect, with supporting details further elaborated, is given by the contrast of the slavish, effeminate, shameless, sagging, filthy, whining, bibulous eunuch’s impersonation of a triumphator.” (Long, p. 121)

Claudian asked sarcastically, "Have we ever seen a temple built or altars raised to a eunuch god?" Of course we have — the Egyptian god Osiris. This point of Claudian's does not stand up to scrutiny.

Furthermore, within Claudian's poem, Cybele watches the self-mutilating Curetes dance. See also Luc. 1.559-63; after this section, there is mention of Bellona and Cybele’s self-mutilating priests. (Long, p. 110)

In "Don Juan: Dedication," George Gordon Lord Byron (1788-1824) used the term "intellectual eunuch" to complete the metaphor of the adoration of a sultan in Stanza XI. In Stanza XV, the words "emasculated" and "Eutropius" appear, associating castration with servitude.

Sources

Jacqueline Long. Claudian's In Eutropium: Or, How, When, and Why to Slander a Eunuch. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Elagabalus, 3rd century Roman emperor: A eunuch?

Was the Roman emperor Elagabalus castrated?

His full name was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born 204 CE, ruled 218-222 CE). He was better known as Elagabalus or by a spiritualized version of that name, Heliogabalus, helios being Greek for "sun." He was a sun-worshipper who participated in the taurobolium and possibly was castrated or infibulated (genitally pierced). His goal was to unite all Roman religions, but this was not achieved during his reign that lasted merely three years and nine months.

The 12-century Michael Glycas said that the emperor asked surgeons to castrate his husband Hierocles and construct female genitalia for him, while the 12-century John Zonaras said that the emperor requested such a surgery for himself. (Lascaratos and Kostakopoulos, p. 234)

Regarding his possible castration, Georges Duviquet wrote: “Il alla agiter sa tête avec les prêtres châtrés de Cybèle, se liant comme eux les parties génitales, observant toutes leurs coutumes; puis il emporta, our le déposer dans le temple de son dieu, leur trésor sacré.” (Duviquet, p. 51) An endnote to this comment added: “Genitalia devinxit. Saumaise et Gruter proposent defixit pris dans le sens d’enlever, arracher. On a vu dans Aurélius Victor qu’Héliogabale, s’étant coupé les parties génitales, abscissis genitalibus, se consacra à la Mère des dieux.” (Duviquet, p. 286) Duviquet included a diagram of a statue that shows Heliogabalus with intact genitalia. (Duviquet, p 55)

Sources

"Operations on Hermaphrodites and Castration in Byzantine Times (324-1453 AD)." John Lascaratos and Athanastos Kostakopoulos. Urologia Internationalis 1997; 58:232-235.

Georges Duviquet. Héliogabale. Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1903.

Chief Eunuch character in 'Women of All Nations' (1931)

The 1931 farce "Women of All Nations" has a Turkish harem scene with a eunuch character (the man in the turban) played by Sam Baker.

Today the film can be viewed on YouTube split into five parts. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 The scenes with the eunuch are in Part 4 and Part 5. Two minutes into Part 4, the Marines travel to "a Mediterranean port." The music and costumes appear to be Turkish. A man in a turban, proudly identifying himself as "the chief eunuch," arrives to deliver a handwritten message from his "mistress."

He enters the room meowing like a cat, on instructions from his mistress who knew that her boyfriend would recognize the affectionate call and would turn around, allowing the eunuch to identify him. The actors in Women of All Nations speak in a variety of badly exaggerated accents; the eunuch character speaks like an African-American person, not like someone kidnapped from the Sudan as a boy who then grew up in Turkey. The character of Prince Hassan, played by Bela Lugosi, "swears in Hungarian" (according to Michael J. Weldon in Psychotronic). Also, since the Ottoman sultanate fell after the end of World War I, the depiction of the court would have been a few years outdated by 1931.

Baker also appeared in the serial "Lost City." The screenshots below are from the opening credits of Lost City's Chapter 1.

In The Thief of Bagdad, Baker played "the sworder who guards the staircase entrance to the princess's boudoir," as Katie Gee Salisbury tells us in Not Your China Doll.

Eunuchs in 'In the Land of the Lion and Sun' (1883)

In the Land of the Lion and Sun, or Modern Persia is Dr. Charles James Wills' 1883 travel memoir. The book is hundreds of pages, and the word "eunuch" appears only several times. These two excerpts are noteworthy. Page numbers are from the 1893 Ward, Lock and Bowden, Ltd. version.

“I was handed over to a white eunuch, who seemed to be troubled with all the ills that flesh is heir to, and who grunted and grumbled a good deal as he led me towards the part of the house set apart for the habitation of the ladies.

After passing through several yards and passages, we came to a low door with a curtain. My guide entered, and raised the curtain, previously shouting ‘Bero! Bero!’ (Be off, be off).

* * *

The eunuch now returned, seated himself on the ground at my side...

* * *

After talking to the eunuch for some minutes, in which the old fellow evidently was calling these very gushing ladies to order, they suddenly plumped down on their knees in front fo me, and compelled me to feel both their pulses, look at both their tongues, examine their throats, and a second time to feel their pulses at the other wrist.

As I understood very little Persian, and neither they nor the eunuch anything but that language it was very difficult to make out what was the matter. One thing was very certain — they looked upon the whole matter as a very good joke; and seemed inclined to torment the eunuch and make great fun of me." (pp. 38-41)

And here:

...the ragamuffin attendants on the royal ladies always used to shout “Begone,” “Be off,” and their postilions would always drive as close as possible, and pass one as if they wished a collision, or to take a wheel off.

The custom of the kūrūk is dying out. It used to be death for any man to be in the neighbourhood of the royal wives when on their numerous outings. The people always fled, or stood with faces to the wall ; and Europeans, when they saw the eunuchs' procession approaching, and heard the cry of "Gitchen" (Turkish "Begone"), to avoid unpleasantness and possible rows, used to turn down the first street. A very eccentric Austrian, the Baron Gersteiger Khan (the latter title being, of course, a Persian dignity ; for many years instructor to the Persian army, and at last general; principal officer of engineers, and constructor of roads, in which latter work he has really left some striking marks of his success), on meeting the ladies when he was on foot, turned his face to the wall like a native, and as each carriage passed, deliberately saluted from the back of his head. This delighted the ladies, and they informed the Shah. The Shah sent for Gersteiger, and made him repeat his salutes, and after laughing a good deal, gave him a handsome present. (p. 370)

There is no good reason for the US to invade Iran in 2018

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was done on false pretenses (revisit this blog's "There was no good reason for the US to invade Iraq in 2003") and made Iraq a more dangerous place.

• "War was 'devastating to America' - and Iraq," Charles Davis, Al Jazeera, 6 Oct 2013
• "Renewed Violence in Iraq," Douglas A. Ollivant, Council on Foreign Relations, 9 August 2012
• "How the 2003 Iraq invasion devastated the country’s health service," Ahmed Aber, The Conversation, 6 July 2016
• "The US Destruction of Iraq: We Should Never Forget," William Blum, Foreign Policy Journal, Feb 5, 2016
• "Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study," Daniel Trotta, Reuters, 14 Mar 2013

History repeating itself?

Lawrence Wilkerson wrote for the New York Times on Feb. 5, 2018: "Fifteen years ago this week, Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, spoke at the United Nations to sell pre-emptive war with Iraq. As his chief of staff, I helped Secretary Powell paint a clear picture that war was the only choice..." It was a choice, he continued, "that resulted in catastrophic losses for the region and the United States-led coalition, and that destabilized the entire Middle East."

Thus, when U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, in January 2018 presented U.S. intelligence information, specifically satellite images, to claim that Iran was not complying with restrictions on its military, Wilkerson believes "the evidence fell significantly short."

"It’s astonishing," he wrote, "how similar that moment was to Mr. Powell’s 2003 presentation on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — and how the Trump administration’s methods overall match those of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. He noted that "war with Iran, a country of almost 80 million people whose vast strategic depth and difficult terrain make it a far greater challenge than Iraq, would be 10 to 15 times worse than the Iraq war in terms of casualties and costs."

He concluded: "We’ve seen this before: a campaign built on the politicization of intelligence and shortsighted policy decisions to make the case for war. And the American people have apparently become so accustomed to executive branch warmongering — approved almost unanimously by the Congress — that such actions are not significantly contested."

Andrew Sullivan wrote for New York Magazine in March 2018:

The real possibility of a nuclear conflict with North Korea is getting more real by the day (can you imagine Bolton’s counsel for the Kim Jong-un meeting?); and with Bolton in place, the groundwork for ending the Iran nuclear deal is also finally complete. And what’s noticeable in all this is the irrelevance of the Senate. They refuse to reclaim their treaty-making powers with respect to trade (they could end Trump’s China shenanigans overnight); they have abdicated any influence on foreign policy and war just as they have done nothing to protect the special counsel. They are just like the Roman Senate as the republic collapsed. The forms survive; there is nothing of substance behind them.

When the U.S. detonates the Iran Nuclear Accord, the European alliance, in so far as it still staggers onward, will reach crisis point; and the Iranian regime will likely accelerate its nuclear weapons program. They’d be crazy not to. At which point, the path to war starts (or rather is very hard to stop).

TERRESTRIAL VERSES (2023, 77 MIN.)
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALI ASGARI AND ALIREZA KHATAMI, IN FARSI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Film Forum description: "In Tehran, a new father seeks to register the name (insufficiently Islamic, he is told) of his newborn son; a 20-something rideshare driver caught on camera without a hijab attempts to retrieve her impounded car; a man with poem tattoos applies for a driver’s license; an elderly woman pleads with the police for the return of her beloved dog. This taut, pulsing drama — composed of nine deceptively simple, single-take vignettes, each featuring an ordinary Iranian citizen facing an unseen bureaucrat — brilliantly incarnates the absurdity, hypocrisy, and seeds of defiance that belie authoritarian control."